Blair: 'UK has enough troops in Iraq'

Tony Blair today appeared to rule out the immediate deployment of more British troops in Iraq, despite recent reports suggesting that as many as 2,000 extra soldiers could be sent to fill gaps left by the withdrawal of Spanish forces.

"The advice that we have now is that we have sufficient troops to do the job," Mr Blair, speaking at a joint news conference with the Italian prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi, said.

"Obviously, we will have to make good any deficiencies in any countries that may withdraw their troops - that is a decision for them. But I think for us, we are determined to see this thing through."

Mr Blair's comments contradicted newspaper reports that senior Whitehall officials had drawn up a series of options to expand Britain's current 7,500-troop commitment.

According to a report in yesterday's Times, the possibilities ranged from sending extra soldiers to the central south zone to taking control of the multinational division there.

Ministry of Defence officials later confirmed that discussions about recent events in Iraq were under way, but Mr Blair's statement suggested the talks had resulted in a decision to maintain existing troop strength. However, he said: "We keep the question of troops under review."

The development came after US troops killed more than 40 insurgents in a fierce overnight gun battle near Najaf as Spanish forces completed their withdrawal from a base in the heart of the city.

The battle began at round 9.45pm (1845 BST), and continued for several hours, involving ground troops backed up by attack helicopters, a military spokesman said.

The spokesman said the soldiers had killed 43 gunmen and destroyed an anti-aircraft system belonging to the insurgents.

According to witnesses cited by Reuters, helicopters fired rockets at a checkpoint of the Mahdi army - the militia loyal to radical Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr - on the outskirts of the town of Kufa, which is around six miles north-east of Najaf. It followed fighting between US troops and militiamen in the area.

The clashes came as 200 US troops and military police were deployed inside Najaf, moving into a base vacated by Spanish troops around five miles from the city centre. The US force moved in to Najaf to ensure that the compound did not fall into the hands of the Mahdi army.

Spain's prime minister, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, today said that the country had completed the withdrawal of its peacekeeping forces from Iraq.

"As of 1600 hours, no Spanish member of the Plus Ultra II brigade remains in Iraq," Mr Zapatero told parliament during a debate on his decision to withdraw Spain's 1,300 troops.

The Plus Ultra brigade is the name given to the Spanish contingent that was stationed in the Najaf and Diwaniya. Mr Zapatero added that the only Spanish military personnel remaining in Iraq were logistics experts assigned with shipping home military equipment, and that they would have left by May 27.

US-led forces have been locked in a tense stand-off with Mr Sadr - whom they have vowed to "kill or capture" - since he launched a Shia uprising against US control in several towns and cities.

The offensive came in response to the shutting down of his newspaper by the US authority in Iraq, and the arrest of one of his aides.

Military commanders had previously said they would not attack Mr Sadr's stronghold among the shrines of Najaf, the holiest Shia city in Iraq, for fear of angering the wider Shia community.

In Baghdad, however, US officials yesterday warned that the reported stockpiling of weapons in "mosques, shrines and schools" in Najaf could turn such sites into targets for military action.

"The coalition certainly will not tolerate this situation," the US administrator in Iraq, Paul Bremer, said in a statement addressed to residents of the city. "The restoration of these holy places to calm places of worship must begin immediately."

Mr Bremer's spokesman, Dan Senor, would not elaborate on steps the US-led forces were ready to take to ensure that happened. He noted that, in the case of military action, "those places of worship are not protected under the Geneva Convention" if they were used to store weapons.

Meanwhile, the death of a US soldier during fighting in Baghdad today brought the number of US troops killed in combat in the past 27 days to 115 - the same number of US personnel killed during the two-month conflict that toppled Saddam Hussein a year ago.

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